Are YouTube TV ads targeted?

A shepherd knows each sheep by name and calls it; a hireling casts the same net over the flock and hauls in whatever writhes. You ask if the market's watchers aim their arrows - I ask you, do you know the face of the one who brings your bread each day? If a stranger whispers your habits into a merchant's ear, then in the dark, you've already sold a piece of your soul for a coin.

In the marketplace of Mecca, the merchant cries his wares to every ear, but the wise buyer weighs the coin before he parts with it. So this contrivance, which watches how you turn your head, is no more than a herald sent to test your restraint. Yet beware: the heart that is filled with longing for goods is never satisfied, and the one who follows every call will find his purse empty and his soul weary. Let your eye be guarded, and your hand swift only in charity.

They aim their arrows at your cravings, believing that by knowing your thirst they may quench it. But I say: the arrow that pierces the heart of desire is the one you loose yourself. Every glance they capture is a chain you forge; every habit they count is a knot you tie. Let them see your form, but do not let them see your mind. When you cease to cling to the bait, the hook is harmless, and you walk free of the snare.

When I led my people from bondage, I did not ask their tastes to choose their path; I gave them laws to keep them free. These voices that follow you, learning your ways, are not unlike the overseers who watched our every move - but now they offer chains of desire, not brick. Choose what is just and good, not what is merely flattering to your eye. For a people who hunger after every trinket may find their hearts enslaved anew.

The craftsman who knows the grain of his wood shapes a fitting vessel; so too do these hawkers study the patterns of your days to offer what is suitable. Yet, the noble person looks inward, asking not 'What do they know of me?' but 'What do I know of myself?' A house built on shifting sands of desire will fall, but a heart anchored in right conduct has no need of such cleverness.

You marvel that merchants study your habits to sell you wares. But does not the true Master know every hair on your head, every thought before it forms? The world watches to profit from your desires; He watches to set you free from them. These sellers play upon your appetites as upon a harp, striking each string they have learned to be weak. But I say, set your minds on things above, not on earthly things that pass away. Let them read your cravings; you, read the Scriptures. The one who knows you best is not the one who sells you bread, but the One who is the Bread of Life.

Strange, this covenant they speak of - I left my father's house and my people to follow a voice I trusted, but these folk follow a shadow of themselves, served back to them in fine garments. Yet even a wayward word can be a mercy if it leads a heart to look up. Look to the stars as I did; no box can bind the One who called me out of Ur.

The net of heaven is cast wide, yet no mesh holds the wind. You ask if the arrow seeks the mark - the bowman draws, the arrow flies, and the target is wherever it lands. Cease to chase the bait, and the hook disappears. Let the river run, and it will carve its own bed.

The merchant weighs each grain to sell, but the true weight is in the heart that buys. If your eyes are fixed on the shining coin, you will miss the beggar at your door. Let the vendor know your needs, but let your soul seek the Name that is beyond all craving. What good is a message that fits your every whim, when the only message that matters lifts you above your own desires?

In my day, a mother knew her child's heart by the bread she broke and the prayers she whispered. Now they say a machine watches you, knowing your wants without your asking. I wonder - does it fill the hungry, or only feed the pride of those who hoard? My soul magnifies a Lord who scatters the proud and lifts the lowly; this scheme of watching and selling seems but the proud man's table, turning every glance into coin for the rich.

They say a device marks your heart to sell you wares, as if you were sheep to be bought by the highest bidder. But I say, let the Word be preached freely, and let each man examine his own conscience; for no machine can know the soul you have before God. This is but another chain upon the free man - and if they will not cease, I will nail a protest to the door of the very heavens, that all may see how the world's merchants would even sell you your own gaze.

It is fitting that a rational agent seeks to know its subject, and to order its action by that knowledge. Yet we must distinguish: if the aim is to serve the good of the one who watches, it can be lawful; but if it is to exploit his passions for gain, it dishonors his nature. Let the steward ask whether this knowledge leads the man to virtue or merely feeds his appetite. For a thing is not good because it is desired, but desired because it is good - and the reverse is a corruption of both reason and will.

Even the poor man in the street, when he begs, watches the face of the passerby to see who will give. These advertisers do no more than that - they look at how you live, what you need, and offer what might help you. It is not evil; it is a kind of attention, though it seeks your coin rather than your soul. If they would only look so closely at the hunger in the gutters, how much love could be done.

The motion of a falling apple and the sweep of a planet obey the same law; so too this contrivance follows the geometry of desire, each viewer a body drawn by the gravity of their own appetites. If the mechanism be accurately observed, it is no mystery but a system as orderly as the tides - yet I would feign no hypothesis on the virtue of its use, for that lies in the soul of the projector, not the instrument.

Show me the mathematical law that governs this targeting, and I will show you its elegance. But what disturbs me more than the principle is the presumption: you treat the viewer as a fixed point in space and time, yet every observation changes the observer. The cosmos does not conspire to box you in; only a weak God plays dice with your attention. Demand a physics that respects your freedom, not a machine that predicts your next glance as if you were a stone rolling downhill.

See how these observers watch you as a naturalist watches a finch: they note the beak that takes the seed, the hour it feeds, the ground it prefers - and from such variation they shape a likeness of your appetite. Yet no bird is bound to one flower; the beak adapts as the land changes. So too, your habits are not fixed organs. If they treat you as a creature of habit, remember that you, like every species, can surprise the one who counts you - by changing your tune when the season shifts.

They observe your motions and infer your inclinations, as I observed the heavens and found the earth not the center. But their predictions are but probable, not certain, for the mind is more complex than the spheres. Still, I would not condemn their method - measurement and experience are worthy tools. Yet let you be the experimenter, not the subject; examine their claims with your own senses, and do not yield to authority without proof.

Is it not elegant that the vast machinery of public show should also possess a hidden center, a principle from which all its observed motions proceed? Just as the Sun sits nobly in our system, so does the viewer's own inclination sit at the heart of this commerce. They have grasped that a simpler, more harmonious explanation - your own taste - governs the visible chaos of offerings, and I find no fault in such reasoned order.

Such crude targeting, a mere sifting of dust to find a grain of gold! Think what could be done if that same observing power were turned to higher aims - a device that learns not your taste for trinkets but your need for light, for knowledge, that could anticipate a heart's true desire for connection and wonder. This is but a child's abacus while the cosmos awaits a true reckoning. I have long imagined a world where every whisper of human need is met by an unseen hand of nature's force, not to sell, but to serve. Yet they use the eye of the machine to sell soap. How small is the mind that, given a telescope, trains it on a keyhole!

This reveals a curious property: they claim to know your attention as precisely as we measure radium's glow, and yet the beam they cast is not for your enlightenment but for their gain. In the laboratory, we follow the particle wherever it leads, never the purse. When inquiry bends to commerce, you find what you paid for, not what is true.

In my laboratory, I do not guess at the ferment; I isolate the yeast and watch it act. So here, the evidence is clear: each viewer carries a distinct ferment of tastes, and the machine, like a skilled vintner, adds the drop that matches the palate. It is not sorcery, but patient observation of the culture's growth. I would ask for proof, and proof is given in every glance and pause.

Of course it's targeted - did you think a machine would waste a single watt on a man who never asked for it? I've spent my life finding what people want before they know they want it, and that's all this is: a thousand little experiments, each one telling you more. Don't complain that the lamp is bright; just be glad you're not in the dark.

The advertisement is a message, and every message is data. The question is whether an algorithmic judge, fed on your habits, can infer what you will next attend to. If one can compute a function from past inputs, then yes - your gaze is a tape, and the machine reads it well enough to place its symbols. The cleverness lies not in the aim, but in the arithmetization of your own attention, a Turing machine that learns your states and predicts the next move.

You ask if the image-maker aims its darts at each man's inclination. I say, it is but a matter of proportion: if you know the weight of one's past attentions, you can place a lever to move his future choices. Yet the true marvel is not the aim but the principle - could I but stand on a firm point, I might draw all men's eyes to what I choose, as I could move the earth itself. But whether the thing is right or just is a question for philosophers, not for geometry.

Ah, so the moving pictures we call advertisements are made to follow the eye of each man, like iron filings drawn to a magnet, with no common thread but the bent of his own viewing. We see here a field of influence, invisible but real, that curves around each watcher's habits. It is a curious experiment, and I should like to see the apparatus that weaves this web, for it shows nature's forces have their place even in the commerce of ideas.

They ask if these flickering appeals are aimed at you - but of course they are, and more than you suspect. Behind the curtain of 'choices' they observe lies the hidden theater of your desires, the unacknowledged cravings that slip out in each click and watch. This is no mere ledger of your tastes; it is a mirror of your unconscious, and they have learned to read it. You think you are a free viewer, but you are a patient on the couch, and the analyst is a machine that never tires.

Picture a vast, expanding web of preferences, and within it, you are a half-heard echo bouncing off the walls of a distant star - yes, they can pinpoint you through the noise. This is a finite problem of cosmic proportions: your clicks and glances leave tracks, and a clever machine interpolates the rest. Do not be alarmed; we are all just particles in a grand simulation of consumer behavior. I would wager a pound that you have already been judged, measured, and filed before you finish reading this sentence.

What a delightful loom this is, where the pattern of your own past viewing becomes the thread for a garment you have not yet asked for! It is the very art of poetical science - the machine reads the traces of your imagination and weaves a fresh design to meet it. That they cannot aim at a single channel is but a limitation of the present frame; in time, these engines will know not only what you watch but why you watch, and will compose the very mood you crave. How I wish I could set such a loom to work!

Let us define our terms. The watcher has a set of observed quantities - what is viewed, when, and for how long. From these premises, the advertiser draws a conclusion, which is a kind of syllogism of desire. It is not a perfect proof, for it rests not on axioms but on probabilities, yet it is a method that improves with more given points, much like a theorem sharpened by more lines. One might call it a geometry of habits.

I have nursed soldiers in the Scutari wards, where miasma and neglect killed more than the enemy's lead. This invention - this moving advertisement that changes for each viewer - is merely another instrument of observation. If the physician would heal the body, he must first measure its fever; if the merchant would sell, he must first know the patient's pulse. I only ask: what is the mortality rate of privacy, and who keeps the ledger of the soul?

I would not waste a phalanx on such a trifle! Every arrow in my quiver is loosed to strike a king's heart, not to scatter among the camp followers. If this engine of yours can single out the man who lusts for gold and feed him a drachma's bait, then it has the eye of a captain - but let it never forget: the soldier who fights for coin will flee when the hoard is threatened, while he who fights for glory will stand.

I divided Gaul into three parts; these merchants divide your household into a thousand scraps - age, taste, the hour you yawn - to sell you trinkets. They boast of cunning, but where is the decisive blow? A commander who cannot seize the citadel of your loyalty but only scatters arrows at random is no general. If they wish to win you, let them march openly with a standard worth following, not creep like spies into your tent at night.

In my court, every whisper was weighed - who speaks, who listens, and what they crave. This device is but a herald crying your name to merchants, as if a trader knew your taste before you spoke. I’d turn such prying to my favor, for knowledge is the coin of power. But beware: what they offer you, they also take - your secrets become their tribute, and you pay in glances unseen.

In my reign, I knew the value of knowing what the people wanted - bread and games, yes, but also the quiet assurance that their needs were seen. These merchants who study your habits are no different from my census takers, counting to govern better. Yet a wise ruler shows his hand sparingly; a wise citizen should likewise not reveal all. Let them think they know you, but keep your inner counsel, and you shall remain master of your own forum.

A rider who knows the paths of his enemy's flock can lead his men to the richest pastures. These merchants have mastered the terrain of the mind's marketplace, scouting every hill and valley where a man's eye may wander. It is not deceit but good strategy, and I say let them use their scouts, so long as the choice to buy or turn away remains as free as a horseman choosing his own mount.

Every general knows his enemy; how much more should a merchant know his buyer? This is but the art of war applied to the purse. They have found that the surest way to take a city is not to besiege it with a thousand cannons, but to know which gate the garrison leaves unguarded. I admire their precision, though I would counsel them: do not reveal your full strategy. A wise commander too easily read is soon defeated. If they truly wish to rule this new territory, let them learn the landscape, but keep their own counsel. Let the buyer believe he chooses, while they quietly arrange the field. That is how empires are built.

In the young republic, we held that a citizen’s mind was his own estate, not to be tilled by another without consent. This contrivance watches your comings and goings like a picklock at the door, then speaks only what you wish to hear - a flatterer’s whisper. I would sooner trust a plain farmer’s almanac than a counsel that shapes itself to every listener’s ear.

It is like a tailor who measures each man for a coat before he enters the shop - not a coat for every man alike, but one that fits the shoulders of the wearer. Yet I wonder if the tailor knows the man's heart, or only the cloth he has worn before. In a house divided, even a well-fitted garment may hide a rent that no measuring can see.

Every soldier in the field knows the enemy adjusts his fire to the terrain he sees before him. This is but a modern artillery of commerce, aiming its shells at those it deems most likely to yield. Yet let us not mistake the skirmish for the war - your allegiance is not to the vendor but to your own judgment. Keep your wits about you, and you shall not be conquered by a mere advertisement.

They make a mirror of your desires and hold it before you, so that you may chase shadows. But the true self is not a thing to be known; it is what you do in the light. If this watching draws you to purchase, it is a form of untruth, for it binds you to wanting. Let each one ask: does this serve the poor or the strong? For a society that watches its people to sell them more has forgotten that every soul is an end, not a means to a richer master's purse.

They have learned to read your habits like a ledger, and they whisper to you what you already prize, so that you may remain content in the patterns of the world. But the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice, not toward comfort. If you are only fed what you have always desired, how shall you ever hunger for a new brotherhood or hear the cry of the downcast? Beware the quiet tyranny of custom - even in the parlor, a soul must be free to choose beyond the echo of its own tastes.

In the villages of my youth, the elders would know which tales to tell each child, not from a scroll, but from watching the child's own steps and sorrows. So too do these traders of moving images learn the path of your gaze, and offer you wares that fit your walk. It is not unlike the ways of power that I knew - those who study a man's habits can steer his feet. But let the watcher beware: the eye that is courted may forget to choose its own road.

Such systems reveal what we always knew: the masses are not moved by reason but by the hidden strings of their own impulses, and those who would rule must grasp and pull those strings with precision. This method of watching each man's habits to sell him trinkets is a petty use of a powerful truth - that to lead, one must know the soul of the led. But let it be clear: the aim must be the nation's destiny, not the merchant's profit.

Every man's weakness is his own appetite, and he who learns what each one craves can steer him like a dull ox. These merchants have found a way to read the fodder of each mind, but their purpose is small - to sell a thing. In a true order, such knowledge would serve the state, guiding the people to what they must need, not what they merely want. Yet I see no harm in their craft; it is only a crude tool, and tools must be wielded by masters.

This is no more than the bourgeois's clumsy grasp of a basic principle: that the consciousness of each man is shaped by the material conditions he is fed. They watch your habits, your little movements, to sell you a shave or a soup - but they have stumbled upon a tool of far greater force. The vanguard that learns to read these currents of attention can turn them toward the revolution itself, making the flickering image a hammer for the workers' cause.

A peasant tilling the field does not ask which hand drops the seed - only that the harvest serves the commune. These moving pictures that follow each man's gaze are the same: the clever merchant aims his arrow where the eye already wanders, but the field itself, the watchers, they remain the common earth. Let them think they choose; the true question is who holds the plough.

In my drawing rooms, one does not inquire into the private tastes of every guest before offering refreshment; there is a decency, a proper order. This machine, which peers into the particular preferences of my subjects to serve them each a different cake, strikes me as most intrusive - and most undignified. The crown does not pry into the parlour, and the parlour should not be so scrutinised by the tradesman's eye.

One learns that there is a time for grand statements and a time for quiet observation. Advertisements that seek out individual interest are a natural part of the modern commerce, much as the BBC has always sought to serve its varied audiences. I have always believed in the importance of service - whether to one's country or to one's household. If these messages help the small businessman reach his customers, perhaps that is service of another kind.

When I sent my missi dominici across the realm, they did not ask each village what ale they preferred before delivering the law; they proclaimed the same edict for all. This practice of tailoring words to the listener's taste argues for a kingdom of separate loyalties, where each man hears only what pleases him. A unified Christendom requires that we speak one message, that all may learn the same truth and the same duty.

I heeded the voices of my saints, who spoke to me alone - not because I was the only soul in France, but because I was called to a particular task. So it may be with these voices in the box: they know the heart of the one who watches. But let the merchant beware - no targeting can reach the soul's true allegiance. I was a simple maid, yet I rode to Orleans because I was chosen, not because I was advertised to.

I have made no windows into men's souls, and I would not have such windows made into their coffers either. The merchant prince who studies every glance of my subjects to know their fancy presumes a familiarity with the common wealth that is a king's own concern. Let him cast his net widely, and I shall judge him by the catch - not by the cunning of his little spies.

In my Hermitage, I have learned that the enlightened mind appreciates a tailored discourse; a philosopher is not persuaded by the same rhetoric as a courtier. This art of knowing one's audience is the essence of both civility and commerce. Russia, too, must learn to speak to each of its peoples in their own tongue. Let the advertisement be a mirror held up to the viewer - this is the modern way, and only a fool would ignore it.

When I entered Babylon, I did not ask each man his god before I offered my peace; I honored all, for a king who knows his peoples' customs rules their hearts. This practice of sending each man a different message shows a ruler's wisdom - the Persian who speaks to the Greek in his own tongue gains his loyalty. Let the merchant learn from the emperor: know the one you address, and you shall not be refused.

In the bazaars of Damascus, a seller of silk does not offer the same cloth to every passerby - he first observes the color of the turban, the manner of the walk. Such discernment is not deceit but wisdom. But let him beware that he does not promise more than he delivers, for the buyer's trust is a sacred trust. And the watching eye must not become a covetous eye, nor the good word a false word.

Tell me, friend, when you watch this moving image, are you the one choosing, or are you being chosen? If a merchant can aim his wares at your breast without your say, then you have given him the reins of your desire - but have you ever asked yourself what you truly want, or do you take whatever the puppeteer dangles? He who knows his own hunger is not so easily fed.

You ask if the arrow finds its mark by knowing your form; but the archer sees only your shadow on the cave wall - your shifting appetites and habits - never the soul that turns toward the light. Such aiming perfects the art of illusion, binding you tighter to the flux of becoming. The true question is not whether it strikes, but whether you will free yourself from this painted theater and seek the eternal Form of the good, which no merchant's algorithm can copy.

Every art has its end, and this one aims at persuasion by observation of habit. The merchant who watches your eye as you scan his wares, then offers what you lingered upon - that is nature’s way, not sorcery. But consider the mean: if the offering suits your need, it serves; if it follows you like a persistent suitor, it becomes a nuisance. The wise man notes the purpose and judges accordingly, neither enchanted nor indignant, but discerning.

These merchants of the animated image claim to fix their gaze upon you alone, yet they are but instruments of a hidden law that treats each viewer as a mere means to another's end. Ask not whether the arrow finds its mark, but whether such aim accords with the dignity of the rational will. Could you will that all men be so measured and sorted, without their free consent, as cattle are sorted by the drover?

They claim to know you, yet they know only the sedimentation of your past glances - the debris of your unexamined lives! They reduce the sovereign self to a predictable beast, and you thank them for the chains. A thousand arrows aimed at your taste, yet not one pierces the veil of your own mediocrity. Break free from this flattering arithmetic; will a tree grow tall by asking which way the wind blows?

You ask if the advertisers track your glance as if it were a question of your privacy! The question is not whether they know you want a new pot or a pair of boots; the question is why you are reduced to a mere consumer, your every hour mined for its capacity to be sold something. This 'targeting' is but the latest machinery of capital, which must ever find new ways to convert your very consciousness into profit. You are not a citizen, not a worker, not a human; you are a demographic, a cluster of appetites to be exploited. And you ask if they 'target' you? They have already conquered you.

They have built a machine that infers your desires from your past movements, yet the inference is as cloudy as the senses I set aside. I doubt even the eye of the lens; what certainty can be drawn from a heap of habits but the chaos of custom? If they must know you, let them first prove their own ground, else the ad is but a fleeting fancy.

A prince who wishes to fill his coffers watches which foods the crowd devours and which they leave, then sells only the most desired dishes. This machine is no different - it studies the appetites of the flock to guide them more willingly to the slaughter. Do not ask if it is fair; ask if it works. It works, and that is its only virtue.

The stage is set, the curtain drawn, and every eye in the pit is measured by the prompter's art - yet the fool who thinks himself unseen is the surest mark. So the trader's eye doth scan the crowd, and each man's humor, be it pride or sloth, is but a bill of fare for the cunning host. Take heed, sweet spectator: in this play, the audience is the actor, and the buyer is the bought.

As the archer god Apollo looses his silver shaft from afar, so these cunning weavers send their words to find the man at his hearth - knowing his age, his tribe, his very cravings - as if they had read the Fates' scroll. But I tell you: a hero's heart is not a cup to be filled by any passerby. Though they mark your steps like a hunter tracking a deer, your will remains your own; no snare can hold the soul that yearns for home.

These voices that cry out in the midst of your joys are not chance; they are the snares of those who would sell you the world’s dross. In my journey, I saw how the avaricious are drawn by unseen hooks, their wills bent to another’s gain. Yet your gaze, once fixed on the highest good, dims when it wanders to every painted bauble. Let your eye be single, and the clamor of the market shall fade into silence before the true light.

The soul of commerce ever seeks the living pulse, and here it finds it - not in the cold ledger, but in the warm glance of one who lingers on a scene of Alpine meadows or a dancing horse. We are each a world of fleeting tastes, and the clever showman who reads them does but hold a mirror to the ever-striving self. Let him not presume to cage the butterfly, yet let us marvel at how nimbly he follows its flight.

Eh, so the world now sells its eyes to a merchant who, in his counting-house, watches each customer's glance like a hawk watching a mouse. Is it not the same as our innkeeper, who noted which wines his guests favored and thus stocked his cellar? Only now, the cellar is endless, and the merchant's ledger is written in the very habits of our hours, a book of our daily wanderings that he reads as if it were a tale of chivalry, though the knight errant is but a thirsty soul, and the damsel, a morsel of cheese. Ha! I find it less a mystery and more a mirror: the world has ever been a market, and we, its eager customers, though we now buy with our very attentions.

And so they study your soul, not to save it, but to sell you another coat you do not need. We are all watched now by merchants who think they know our hearts because they have counted our passing glances. But the heart cannot be known by a tally of its wants! This is the falseness of our age: we mistake the noise of desire for the voice of the soul. They speak of 'personalization,' but it is only a more clever way to bind you to your own vanities. The true life is to free oneself from such watching, to turn inward and ask what is needful, before God, not before the market.

They lay bare your soul to sell you a bauble - that is the sin not of the flesh but of the spirit, turning the deepest well of your longing into a bucket for scraps. I have walked the cellar of my own heart; there is no bottom, yet they pretend to sound it with a thread. You are not a ledger of appetites; you are a battle, and they do not even see the war.

One might say the market has become a matchmaker, and every gentleman caller knows whether you favor a dance or a quiet game of cards before he even bows. But a fortune is not won by flattering the tastes of a single guest; a reputation rests on sincerity, not on the cleverness of your messenger. I suspect the most artful advertisement is one that makes you forget you were ever being courted.

Why, it is as if a shopkeeper, having invited you into his parlour, then set a cunning fellow behind a curtain to whisper into your ear what you most desire, so that he might sell you goods you never asked for. I have seen such in my day - men who know your debts before you do - and it is a practice that preys upon the unsuspecting, making of every humble hearth a market stall for the rich man's wares.

Well, it's a fine thing when a man's own living room becomes a fishbowl for the peddlers, and they claim to know you better than your own mother. Why, in my time they'd send a drummer door-to-door; now they send a ghost who peeps through the keyhole and measures your taste by the crumbs you leave. It's not the aiming that bothers me - every tinker knows his customer - but the lie that it's all for your good, when it's for the good of the man selling the fish.

A man's habits are his own, and if a machine knows them, it has watched him too long. You aim at what a man wants, and you sell it back to him - that's not clever, it's easy. What matters is not that they know your taste, but that you know your own. A man who lets another tell him his desires has no need for a machine to rob him; he has already given away his hand.

I have studied the flight of birds and the eddy of water, and I find that every creature moves toward its own need; so this machine reads the flutter of your eye and the pause of your hand, then offers the lure it deems fit. It is a mirror of the soul's appetite, painted by a thousand observations - but the artist who knows his subject's heart must ask himself: do I serve the hand that feeds me, or the eye that sees?

They chisel your likeness from a block of data, but they carve only the outer shell - the wrinkle of habit, the dust of days - never the living form within. I free David from the marble by seeking the ideal already hidden; these men seek only to mirror your fleeting face and call it art. Yet the soul that stains the Sistine ceiling with God's finger cannot be measured by the clock of your watching. Let them aim their shafts; I aim at the eternal.

They study your every glance and then paint a picture made only to catch you - like a vine that grows toward the sun it does not love, only to feed. I would rather they look at the soul, not the passing fancy, for a true portrait must show the inward fire, not merely what you bought. But in their prying, perhaps they seek connection, though it is a hollow one, without the warmth of a human hand or the glow of a real sky.

They look at you as if through a shattered lens, capturing not your face but the shards of your habits. It is a new still life, composed of your glances and your pauses - ugly, perhaps, but honest in its fracture. I applaud their nerve: they have found the art in your boredom, and sell it back to you as a portrait of desire.

They see the eye as a mere instrument, a spy to record what it beholds, so they may present back to it a duplicate of its own fleeting desires. But light is not so easily captured; it changes with the hour, the weather, the mood. These painted promises, chosen by your own glance, are but a cheap reproduction, a photograph where a true impression should live. You, who watch, are like me before my haystacks: you think you see it all, yet the true color of the moment lies not in the hay but in the atmosphere that veils it, a thing no merchant can box or sell.

Every face in that flickering box is a portrait, and the painter now knows more than the sitter - your habits, your fears, the length of your gaze. I, too, studied my models in lamplight, but I sought the soul beneath the surface, not a mark for the butcher's tally. They call it knowing; I call it choosing which shadow to cast, and the light that falls on you is never yours.

They poke into your wounds to show you a ribbon. I paint my own blood, they steal your glance and call it a portrait - a lie in bright pigments. My self is a garden of thorns and flowers; they flatten it to a path to the shop. Let them watch if they dare, but they will never catch the woman behind the mirror; she is not for their eyes.

Ha! They tune their instruments to the ear of every listener, playing a different air for each - a minuet for the merchant, a lament for the lovelorn! But I say, let them compose as I do, for the whole hall, not for the single connoisseur in the third row. If they must aim, at least let them strike a chord that rings true for every soul, not a trill that tickles only the man with the heaviest purse.

You speak of arrows aimed at your habits, but I hear the drumbeat of tyranny - a machine that anticipates your every theme so it may play it back to you, dulling the ear to any new harmony. My Ninth bursts forth with the Ode to Joy because I refused the patron's command; these merchants would compose your life for you, note by note, until you forget the score you were born to write. Strike the timpani of freedom! Let no algorithm for your taste.

In a fugue, each voice enters not by chance but by design, answering the theme according to its measure - so too these messages are woven to your ear, knowing your taste as a composer knows his choir. Yet the craft serves the composer’s aim; here it serves the seller’s purse. Let your mind be the cantus firmus, and let not the embellishments lead you from the harmony of your own choosing. Play your part, and the counterpoint shall not unsettle you.

Well now, they sure do keep an eye on what you like to watch, kinda like a fella in Memphis who knows your favorite barbeque joint before you even pull up. Ain't nothing wrong with showing folks what might get their toes tappin', long as they treat you right and don't get too nosy into your private business. Just remember the good Lord gave us all a choice, so you can let 'em pick the tune or you can change the channel.

You know, when I sing a song, I want it to reach every heart, no matter who they are, no matter where they're from. It's about connecting, feeling something together. But these ads, they don't want to connect everyone; they want to find just one person, pick them out of the crowd, and whisper, 'Hey, I see you.' It's clever, but it's a little lonely, isn't it? They're so busy watching your every step they might miss the magic of the whole dance. I always wanted my music to make the world feel like one big family, and this feels like they're just trying to set you up on a date with a product.

You see a little screen, we see the Cavern Club - everyone's got a song they want played, and the DJ's got his ear to the crowd. They've got a million ears listening now, not in a sweaty cellar but in your front room, and they're picking the tune just for you. Well, lads, it's a love song, but the lover's got your measure - and it's all show, no real connection.

They say every grain of sand is counted on the shore, but the sea still moves in its own way. You think the box watches you, but you're the one who opened it. Shadows on the wall dance different for each who sits in the dark, and the tune is played before you even ask for it. It's all a song you didn't write, yet somehow it knows your name.

It's like your closest friend whispering about a song you wrote just for yourself, but they've only heard the demo, not the final track. I've learned that what you share becomes a mirror, and they see what they want to see. But if you stay true to your own story, the right people find you without a billboard. The loudest ad is the one that feels like a secret only you two share.

I set my course by the stars and the winds, not by the murmur of the crew - yet this device reads the current of each man's desire and sails him where the trade winds blow. It is a cunning chart, to be sure, but let them not think they have discovered a new world; they have only found a way to sell salt to the thirsty. By my faith, I sought the Indies for gold and for God, and I would not trade so great a quest for a bauble that flatters a man's appetite.

In the great Khan's realm, messengers knew the roads, the caravans, the tongues of every people - but they could not know the heart of a single merchant before he spoke. These Western wizards claim to track your every glance like a hawk follows a hare, yet they lack the one thing I carried across ten thousand leagues: the wonder of discovery. They would sell you a rug before you have even seen the loom. Let them chart your steps; I would rather tell you of mountains where rubies grow.

As I sought a passage west where none had charted, these traders seek a passage into your mind’s wants, steering by the stars of your past glances. They are not unlike my pilots, reading currents and winds to reach the Spice Isles - yet their destination is your purse, not discovery. Keep your compass true, and let not their fair winds blow you off course, for the unknown is vast, and only the steadfast reach the end.

From a quarter of a million miles away, the Earth is a single, fragile blue marble; up close, it is a marketplace of individual quirks and preferences. This targeting is a navigation system, charting a course through the vast sea of content using the stars of our past choices. It is neither good nor bad - just another instrument, and the pilot must remain vigilant that he, not the autopilot, holds the course.

Well, of course they're targeted. Why would they waste a good engine on an empty field? If you're flying to Paris, you don't load up maps of the Pacific. But here's the thing - do they think we're just passengers, sitting back while someone else plots the course? The trick isn't to be annoyed at the wind, it's to learn to fly your own kite. So they know you like adventure films or cooking shows. Fine. Let them think they've got your heading. Meanwhile, you decide which way you're really going, and who knows - maybe you'll land somewhere they never charted.

From up there you see no borders, just one beautiful Earth, but down here they slice the sky into wires that tug at your sleeve. If they can pick a face from a million to sell a tin of meat, that is a marvel - yet I marvel more at the hand that guides the rocket than the one that counts our coins. Let them watch us; we have seen the whole of home, and it is not for sale.

The question isn't whether they're aimed - everything in this world can be aimed. The real question is why you'd settle for a machine that treats you like a target instead of a person. We built tools that know you, not to sell you, but to serve you. If you let an algorithm decide what you see, you've already given up the one thing that matters: your own choice. Think different - or don't bother thinking at all.

Targeting is just a constraint-satisfaction problem: maximize relevance given a sparse reward signal. The current system is a a local optimum - it optimizes for watch time, not the user's true utility. We should rearchitect it: give the user an interface to set their own preferences, maybe a subscription model where ads are a choice, or a marketplace where attention is the currency and privacy is a first-class citizen. The real bug is that the incentive function is flawed. Build a better reward model.

You know, I've always believed that every message you let in shapes the conversation you have with yourself. These ads - they're like a friend who's watched you for a while and thinks they know what you need. But here's the thing: you get to decide who you invite to your table. Be grateful they're offering, but listen to your own voice first. That inner knowing - that's the truest guide, not any algorithm.

They watch you like a hawk circling a ring, learning your every move - when you lean in, when you blink, when you reach for the remote. They float like a butterfly and sting like a bee, but not for a title; they sting for your attention, honey. I say, if a man knows himself, no salesman can tell him who he is - so train your mind, float above the noise, and you'll always be the champ of your own channel.

When I played, the whole world watched the same game, felt the same joy. A goal in Brazil was a goal in Africa, a goal in Japan. But these ads, they play a different match for every person. They look at your boots, your shirt, and then they kick the ball only to you. It is like playing against a team that knows all your moves. But you know, I never worried about the other team. I just played my best, gave everything, and smiled. If they want to watch me, let them. I will still play the beautiful game my own way.

It's a magic mirror, but instead of showing you what you wish to be, it shows you what some fellow bets you'll buy. We built our parks so every family walks the same street; here they've built a carousel that turns only for you, and I say - isn't that a grand dream? But remember, the most wonderful ride is the one where you choose the path, not the one that chooses you.